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War of words between Ukrainian and Russian Jews heats up

March 27, 2014

The Chief Rabbi of Russia struck out at Ukraine’s Jewish community this week over its opposition to Russian actions in the Crimea. Rabbi Berel Lazar’s comments came less than a month after Alexander Boroda, the president of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia, told The Jerusalem Post that Ukraine’s Chief Rabbi Jacob Dov Bleich was wrong in calling on Russia to “stop its aggression against Ukraine.” Boroda’s statement lead to a war of words between the Jewish communities of Russia and Ukraine.

Russia invaded the semi-autonomous Ukrainian territory of Crimea following the ouster of President Viktor Yanukovich in late February. A recent near-unanimous plebiscite to leave the Ukraine and join the Russian Federation lead to Russian President Vladimir Putin annexing Crimea in a ceremony attended by an enthusiastically clapping Rabbi Lazar.

In an interview with the Post following Boroda’s statement that “Jews and rabbis should stay away from politics,” Bleich castigated the Russian leader, saying that he tries not to mix into Russian politics and expects the same treatment.

Besides, he added, “this isn’t politics, it’s a moral issue.”

Despite world condemnation of the Crimean annexation, Lazar was adamant that Jews in the Ukraine should maintain their silence.

“The Jewish community should not be the one sending messages to President Barack Obama about his policy or to President Putin or to any other leader,” Lazar said Monday during a joint interview with JTA and The Jewish Chronicle of London. “I think it’s the wrong attitude.”

Lazar, Chabad’s top figure in Russia, was responding to a question about a March 5 letter to the Russian president from the Association of Jewish Communities and Organizations of Ukraine, or VAAD, following the incursion of Russian troops into the the Crimean peninsula.

“Your policy of inciting separatism and crude pressure placed on Ukraine threatens us and all Ukrainian people,” the letter said.

Lazar criticized the Ukrainians for involving themselves in issues that don’t directly concern the Jewish community. At the same time, Lazar said he was concerned about anti-Semitism in Ukraine under its interim government, which was one of the reasons Putin gave as justification for the troop mobilization.

Russia has branded Ukraine’s new authorities as fascists backed by anti-Jewish militants in justifying its takeover of Crimea in justifying its takeover of Crimea.

During a press conference in Moscow on March 3, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned against the “rampage of reactionary forces, nationalist and anti-Semitic forces going on in certain parts of Ukraine, including Kiev.

However, despite such concerns and a spate of antisemitic incidents, including several physical attacks, Ukrainian Jewish leaders have on the whole accused Russia of fomenting antisemitism and violent staging incidents themselves.

“I have never claimed that the Russian government or Yanukovich administration were anti-Semitic,” Joseph Zissels of the Vaad of Ukraine told the Post recently. “It is much worse – they are cynically willing to play the Jewish card in the implementation of their objectives, and are therefore [shown to be] willing to sacrifice Jews.

In a press conference of his own in New York earlier this month, Bleich said that “things may be done by Russians dressing up as Ukrainian nationalists” in the “same way the Nazis did when they wanted to go into Austria and created provocations.”

Speaking with the JTA, Lazar suggested Ukrainian Jewish leaders did not feel free to decry anti-Semitic acts there. But Vyacheslav Likhachev, a VAAD spokesperson, said it was Lazar who could not speak freely.

“When Lazar speaks, it is as a person holding an official position, that of a religious leader in contemporary Russia and as such, it is impossible for him or any other person in his position to express views that do not align with the Kremlin’s official line and propaganda,” Likhachev said.

Lazar, who is also the leader of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia, has previously come under criticism for his role as President Vladimir Putin’s “court Jew,” as some Jewish activists have alleged. Jewish groups that have declined in influence since Lazar’s rise to prominence have decried what they see as his vigorous activism on behalf of the ruling regime and his downplaying of antisemitism within Russia itself.